Israeli forces killed at least ten Palestinians, five of them policemen, in raids in the northern West Bank today.
Six Palestinians killed when Israeli commandos overran two police positions around the northern West Bank town of Jenin. The others were two gunmen at the Balata refugee camp on the outskirts of Nablus, a 34-year-old man hit apparently by a stray bullet in Nablus and a 65-year-old man at the Jenin refugee camp.
Hospital sources said more than 100 Palestinians had also been wounded in the incursions, with 11 in critical condition.
An Israeli soldier was also killed and two were injured during fierce gufights at the Balata camp.
The Israeli army had no immediate comment on the deaths but admitted its forces had attacked the Balata and Jenin refugee camps and said heavy fighting had taken place.
It called the camps "bases of terror infrastructure that have been responsible for the murder of the dozens of Israelis".
The raids took place after an attack in which a Palestinian woman blew herself up and injured three Israeli police at a West Bank checkpoint yesterday.
Later, a militant Palestinian group threatened to attack the Jewish settlement of Gilo if the Israeli army did not halt its raid on the Balata camp.
A representative of the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group with links to Palestinan President Mr Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, made the threat in the West Bank town of Bethlehem as the raid continued on Balata on the edge of the city of Nablus.
Gilo, which was built on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war but is considered by Israel to be part of Jerusalem, has often come under fire during 17 months of Israeli-Palestinian violence.